By Stephanie Sommers Honestly, someone should have warned me that the Bataille des Fleurs, the Battle of the Flowers, was not a contest between the flower floats in a parade but rather an actual ‘battle’ [...]
By Stephanie Sommers The King arrived at 9 pm on Friday. By then it had become apparent when I asked various Niçois what happens on the King arrival that a lot of locals have never [...]
By Stephanie Sommer Before I moved to Nice to study French and look for work, I had been warned by friends in nearby Provence that this was a city of little old ladies and small [...]
One afternoon last weekend, while visiting friends in flat, damp Vendée, south of the Loire by the Atlantic coast, I abandoned them to their napping 2-year-old, their coughing 4-year-old, and their 6-year-old having a brat attack because she didn’t [...]
A brief accounting of local history, some practical advice, restaurant tips, and hotel suggestions for this town for all seasons, whether for a 1-, 2-, or 3-night stay, plus excursions to the nearby islands. Despite [...]
The following morning is sunny and cool. I have breakfast in a café facing the port. I visit the Saturday morning market in and around Les Halles, the covered food market on Place du Marché. [...]
I’ve just checked into a mundane hotel in La Rochelle, a port town for all seasons situated along the Atlantic between Bordeaux and the Loire, three hours from Paris by train. I set down my [...]
I love the clichés of seaside and countryside travel in southern European. Sitting in a seaside café I’ll let the whish of waves against a pebble beach draw me into a Mediterranean daze. And pausing [...]
It was a slow news day in Angers, and probably too in the surrounding swath of the Loire Valley, when I arrived to speak at the city’s English-language library. I could tell because the regional [...]
